Last night, I let my conventional gas oven reach 1035° F on the floor and about the same on the dome. Then, I turned off the oven. After 20 minutes of being off, the floor (composed of a stack of three pizza stones) downgraded to 846° F and the dome to 961° F. At that point, I loaded the Pizza Margherita inside the oven._______________________________________________________________________________________1000 gr. Caputo Pizzeria (Datum Point)645 gr. Water (64.5%)30 gr. Sea Salt (3.0%)40 gr. Sourdough Culture (4%)_______________________________________________________________________________________

As shown below, it was not a good idea to bake the pizza with the oven off; it took 2 minutes and 35 seconds for the pizza to bake. And, it does not matter what!—a modified conventional gas oven, for obvious reasons, does not seem to produce a crust as tender as a crust baked in a Neapolitan oven. At best, it is a good simulation of a tender Neapolitan crust! All these experiments with my gas oven, since a month and a half ago until present, have been quite educational and worth my while. I wonder what results I may procure if I replace my pizza stones with "soapstone slabs"—which probably are not as moisture-absorbant as my present pizza stones.

By the way, the buffalo mozzarella (Auriemma S.R.L. DOP from Campana) used on the pizza below was terrible! It had the consistency of feta cheese, contained little fat, did not want to melt, and had absolutely no gamy flavor characteristic of Bufala di Mozzarella.

cool videos Omid!! nice guitarra flamenca skills!! i work in the music business, and one of my clients is Fernando de la Rua () do you know him?

Thank you! Unfortunately, I am not familiar with Fernando de la Rua. I will check him out on the net. I love the guitar music, and the orchestral works, of the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. Your country, Brazil, is definitely a landmark on the guitar map of the world. Good night!

And to think I had Paco de Lucia on in the background as I watched those videos!

Funny coincidence.

Excellent videos!

Thank you! Did you know that Neapolitan pizza fever is also becoming prevalent in Spain? Early this year, I found two new Neapolitan pizzerias there, in Jerez de la Frontera and Sevilla, in addition to the ones I had found in my earlier trips. When I tried the one in Sevilla, I had to wait in a long line for 2 hours and 30 minutes, so I thought it had to be good. Unfortunately, it was the opposite! The rest of them were just as bad. You can see below a picture I shot of the Pizza Margherita I had at the Neapolitan pizzeria in Jerez. It was actually tasty, but definitely not Neapolitan. (It was baked in a wood-fired oven!) It is interesting that Spain is almost next door to Italy, yet America, which is thousands of miles away from Italy, produces way better Neapolitan pizzas than most of European nations, in my opinion. Good night!

Not long ago, I talked to a corporate owner of a Neapolitan pizzeria who told me that, bufala di mozzarella imported from Italy enter the U.S. in a frozen state. (I think he mentioned that often "liquid nitrogen" is used to freeze the mozzarella balls!) If truly so, there goes out the window a percentage of the texture and flavor of the bufala di mozzarella imported to this country from Italy! Moreover, to the best of my knowledge, bufala di mozzarella is supposed to be "fresh" (hence "fresh mozzarella"), not aged. Because of the unavoidable factors of distance and time, the mozzarella balls imported to the U.S. are not as fresh as one hopes them to be. Therefore, there are inevitable compromises!

There is a new member in this forum. Let's welcome Mr. Richard Eberle (here known as "Bufalatte") of "BufaLatte USA", which is, as he put it, "an Italian-American joint venture dedicated to bringing true Mozzarella di Bufala to the U.S. Market." He continued, "We . . . bring all of our buffalo milk in [the U.S.] from Italy. Our first plant is in Florida." When I asked him, "Will your company produce "buffalo ricotta", which is quite rare [and unknown] in the U.S.?", he replied: "As of now it is only buffalo mozzarella but when scale permits we hopefully will start our own curd production which opens the door to a buffalo ricotta." I hope this is the light at the end of the tunnel! (http://www.bufalatte.com/index.html)

Has anyone here tried ricotta made with water buffalo milk? If you try it, you may never want to go back to the regular ricotta. I look forward to the venture and their products. Perhaps, this is one way we can get our hands on fresh Mozzarella di Bufala—at lower prices and without them being frozen.

As most of you know buffalo mozzarella is extremely popular in Italy due to its availability and freshness. The mozz is produced, sold and consumed within a very short period of time normally within 48 hours or so. So there are complications in maintaining freshness when a delicate product has to be preserved and shipped and in the process going through potentially different environmental conditions. I want to be very careful here because a number of companies and individuals are trying to get this balance right in providing buffalo mozzarella to the US market and I am not in the business of criticizing anothers efforts. But in does appear that some product shipped from Italy has been frozen and I think it is fair to say that this process has a detrimental effect on the quality of the mozz. I think there is also, in some cases, higher amounts of salt and preservatives used in the exported variety to maintain a longer shelf life. If you taste the packing solution in some cases this can be very noticeable. So in some cases does the acidity and salt content enhance or mask the natural flavor of the mozz?

Bufalatte is attempting to bring bufala di mozzarella to our customers in a different way. We purchase frozen curd from some of the top DOP producers in Campania, ship it to the USA and then make fresh mozz in the USA with the intention of getting it into the hands of our customers within days of production. The Italians have long used the technique for freezing curd in order to balance out the seasonal demand for bufala with the natural production of the milk.

It is early days for us but we are starting deliveries in Florida and the metro Washington DC area and are lining up Dallas and Southern California so be patient with us. This has been a big challenge and we are excited to get this going.

Washington DC? Incredible! That just so happens to be where I am currently hanging my hat! I will hopefully be able to purchase your product very soon.

I have been fortunate enough to have tried ricotta di bufala, and as mentioned it is exceptional. For the time being, however, I make my own ricotta. I receive a weekly supply of raw, unpasteurized milk from which I can do some pretty wonderful things.

Dear Bufalatte, again, welcome to this wonderful forum! I sincerely thank you for your prompt response. I'm sure your presence will be appreciated here. Please, keep us posted as to when your products will be available in Southern California and elsewhere. Have a great weekend!

Omid, I now know I have something in common with another member , the love of Flamenco. Tienes Duende!

Thank you, but I don't think I have reached the state of being, known as "Duende". I wished! Truly, Italy and Spain have so much to offer: Pizza Napoletana (e Opera Italiana) and Flamenco (y Paella), the best of the two worlds! Once upon a time, I tried to fuse Pizza Napoletana and Paella (i.e., seafood Paella with chorizo) together. (I got the idea after I noticed Franco Manca pizzeria in England uses Spanish chorizo on their pizzas.) Instead of rice, I used pasta that was shaped like rice. I noticed that saffron and melted fior di latte (along with clams and mussels) go together so well. I need to go back and improve the recipe. Good day!

Last night, I finished a new design which worked better than any other designs I have implemented so far. . . . Please, notice the the bent steel plate below the pizza stone and above the bake element. It functions to divert the heat away from the stones (keeping them not excessively hot) and toward the dome. This mechanism keeps the dome hotter than the floor, giving me a longer "bake time-frame".

Two nights ago I had a strange dream. . . I dreamed a round pizza stone, on its way floating upward from beneath an ocean, colliding with and shattering a rectangular pizza stone. Once the round stone reached the surface of water, a beatific Pizza Margherita appeared on it. So . . . yesterday morning I replaced the stack of rectangular pizza stones with a stack of round pizza stones (three of them) inside my gas oven. In addition, I removed the "curved steel plate" from below the stones and placed it, still in the same position, under the bake element to reflect, like a mirror, the heat radiation upward, around the circumference of the stack of round pizza stones. Below are the results: